D-Von Dudley provides further details on his racism allegations against Jim Ross
In October of 2025, WWE Hall of Famer D-Von Dudley stated that he experienced racism in WWE from “certain top officials” and later mentioned Jim Ross as a specific name. In December, JR publicly denied D-Von’s claims of racism.
In a new video published to his YouTube channel, D-Von provided further details on his racism allegations against JR…
“It was at the WWE restaurant, the grand opening of it. We were mingling with some of the guests that were there. A lot of them were artists, musical artists, things like that. There were also some actors and actresses there. WWE really rolled out the red carpet for this event.
I remember being upstairs, and Bubba was like, ‘Let’s go downstairs and see what’s going on down there.’ So we went downstairs, and as we’re looking around, there was another private room in the basement of the restaurant. There were so many people upstairs that we were just like, ‘Alright, let’s just chill down here for a second,’ which is what we did.
Here comes JR. JR comes down and we’re like, ‘JR, how you doing? Hey, JR.’
‘Boys, how you guys doing?’
‘Good, JR. Good, good, good.’
‘Hey, you know what, boys? You guys are fitting in really good here.’
And I was like, ‘Oh, cool.’
He says, ‘Yeah, you boys are doing really good, this and that. I like you boys. I like you boys a lot. Devon, I’m not too sure. The verdict’s still out on him.’
I’m saying to myself, what does he mean by that? JR says again, ‘The verdict’s not out yet, but I’m still a little hesitant with Devon.’ Bubba knew what he was getting at, so Bubba butts in and goes, ‘You know something, JR, Devon’s a hard worker. He never gives this company any problems. We go in there and do our business and that’s it. Devon’s a good guy. He takes care of his family. He does everything he’s supposed to do as an individual.’
JR continued, ‘Well, you know, I get that. That’s all good, but it’s just something about him. I’m just not sure.’ I’m not saying anything and I’m keeping quiet. Finally, that’s when it comes out. He says, ‘You know, he’s black. I just don’t know. That’s my hiccup. I don’t know how I feel about that.’
I started balling up my fist, and Bubba saw that. Bubba grabbed me and goes, ‘Yeah, but you know what, JR—black, white, purple, brown—it doesn’t matter. He’s a great individual. He’s a good human being.’
JR says, ‘Oh no, no, no, I’m not saying he’s not. I just don’t know, because he’s black.’
At that point, I had to think about it. If I hit him, we’re going to lose our jobs. If I say something, I could lose my job. At that time, I didn’t think I’d be able to fight that, because I’m a little fish in a big pond.
Now, remind you, when he said it, he was very drunk. Extremely drunk—slurring his words and all that. They say when you’re drunk, the truth comes out.
The other incident was in Indianapolis. Myself, [Tommy] Dreamer, Bubba, [Paul] Heyman, and Spike were sitting at a table. We had gotten there a little early—we had to be there by 1:00, so it was probably around 1:30 or 2:00. JR had just come into catering after getting out of a meeting. He came over, said hello to everybody—but me.
So Paul pretty much called him out and said, ‘What? You don’t want to say nothing because he’s what? Why don’t you want to say hello to Devon? What’s wrong with Devon? What, because he’s black?’ And JR went, ‘You’re damn right, because he’s black. You’re damn right.’
Now, I don’t know if he got mad at Paul for calling him out and ignoring me and not saying hello, which he didn’t have to, but still—that’s fine. I don’t know if he got mad and that’s why he said what he said, because his ego got in the way or what have you. But that’s what was said.
Now listen, people want to say it’s all about the race card. No one’s pulling the race card here.”